Still not sure if joining the IT industry is for you? Read this inspiring story from a mother of three beautiful children, who completed our course and got an amazing job offer. She’s confident that nothing can hold her back from achieving her goals, and she believes that nothing can stop you either!
Tell us a bit about yourself. How did your IT career start?
To tell you the truth, I had absolutely no tech background before doing the course. I was a full-time mother to 3 kids. The youngest is still only a few months old now.
I joined the Careerist school three weeks before my due date for my third child (!). And when the internship started I was at the hospital giving birth.
When did you get your first interview?
I got my first interview invitation on the third day of my job search.
My resume was ready and I was well-prepared for the interview.
How many interview rounds did you go through to get your role?
I went through a three round interview process and I got a job offer one week later.
Did the offer you received meet your expectations?
I was originally asking for at least $80,000 per year. And at first, they offered me a salary that was too low, but then we negotiated and they agreed to pay a little bit more. The yearly salary is still less than eighty thousand, but it’s more than the seventy thousand they were offering to begin with.
Taking into consideration low local taxes, it seems to be a nice job, but it’s not the best offer for me as I have a big family to take care of.
Is the role remote or site based?
They needed a person who could work on onsite.
In the second interview they highlighted that it was important for them to find a person who could start working on site before moving onto remote work. I told them I would be open to working remotely too, well at least until the middle of next year (for six months or so).
I’m still waiting to hear about remote work. But, if remote work isn’t an option this doesn’t matter.
Did you get many job offers?
After the first offer, you start getting many other ones.
There are always many opportunities to choose from. Next time I will definitely choose a remote job.
I’m also not afraid to decline job offers from big companies like Facebook, if what they offer me doesn’t suit my needs.
How was the interview for your new job?
In the first interview, there were many questions from the list that Careerist supplied. Generally, they were asking why I wanted to leave the job I was in, and what tools I knew about and so on.
In the second interview they asked me about Android and ADB a lot. The job I have deals with Android, so I prepared well in advance because I expected questions on the subject. I also learned a few more commands via YouTube, just to be extra prepared.
What were your interview questions like?
The type of questions I had were things like, “What would you do if you had 3000 lines of log?” or “How would you find out where something went wrong?”.
I was also asked “How would you clear the cache in an ADB command?”*
They didn’t ask me much else apart from ADB related questions.
*We teach our students how to install and uninstall applications, and how to work with ADB on our courses.
How long did your interview for your job last?
My first interview lasted for 15 minutes. The second was scheduled for two hours, but lasted around 40 minutes. The third one was 30 minutes long. None of them were as scary as I thought they would be.
What is your advice to our potential students? Are there any tips you’d like to share with everyone?
You just need to start doing what’s on your to-do list. Send applications and wait for calls. Don’t be afraid of calls, because those who are afraid don’t get anything. Once you start applying yourself to the cause you’ll get something and you’ll be motivated to keep moving forward.
I got an invitation to an interview on the third day of my job searching process. It was mid-December. So, anything is possible.
When I was applying for roles, I was applying for 20-40 positions a day, without even reading the job descriptions. I used “easy apply” on LinkedIn. You can try this too.
Honestly, when it came to reading and learning the interview questions in preparation for interviews, I didn’t read all the questions (all 46 pages). I spotted the most important ones, prepared for them and learnt them off by heart. I did, however, watch all of the course videos every single day.
Use the interview question list to prepare yourself for an interview and this will be more than enough. Of course, if you know they will discuss a particular topic with you, like Android or ADB, in your interviews, it’s worth looking into getting some extra information about it.
You can read more online or watch videos for beginners to learn basic tips, just like I did. There won’t be any technical questions, so you only need a basic understanding of these topics. Don’t waste time and energy learning API or SQL.
We congratulate you Olesya on your success, and we hope that you have a brilliant career in the IT industry. Olesya is an example to everyone, she shows us all that if we use our time and resources wisely we can achieve great things.